Fight to Restore Services, End Pay Cuts to City Workers, Protect Pensions, Stop Union Busting, and Keep City Assets!

Detroit Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr’s May 12 Financial and Operating Plan admits that it is the massive debt service imposed on Detroit by the banks and financial institutions which is the source of the financial crisis strangling the city. Orr reported that the city had a negative cash flow of $115.5 million in fiscal year 2012. His report reflects the entire deficit is accounted for by debt service payments owed to the banks.

As Emergency Manager, Orr is mandated under the law to guarantee the payment of debt service to the banks. Any talk of “renegotiating the debt service” by Orr is a sham to cover up his real job which is to gut City services and sell off City assets on the bank’s behalf. In contrast to mandating payment of debt service, Orr is empowered under the law to break every contract that benefits Detroit’s workers and residents. He is threatening to sell off DIA art works to pay the banks.

Orr is looking at bankruptcy as his ultimate move. Why? Because only in bankruptcy can he go after the City workers’ pensions, which are the real target in “financial reform” that only benefits the banks. The same banks who claim first lien on the City’s tax dollars are responsible for the economic destruction of the city, through their foreclosure of approximately 100,000 homes between 2005 and 2010 as a result of their racist, predatory lending policies. The banks owe us billions of dollars for the destruction they have caused! They must be made to pay for the reconstruction of our communities.

We are demanding that the City of Detroit should immediately place a Moratorium (halt) on all debt service payments to the banks. We need to restore and expand City services, not see them gutted. City workers have taken too many concessions already and pensions must be guaranteed. We can win these demands by mobilizing to fight back.

Join us on Thursday, June 6 at 5:30pm at Greater Grace Temple, 23500 W. Seven Mile and Monday, June 10 at 5:30 pm at Martin Luther King High School, 3200 E. Lafayette, to demand hands off the City’s assets and a halt to debt service payments to the banks.